Zim Marrow
by GaboonViper
Summary: This story takes place around the time of the computer game Knights of the Old Republic(KotOR).
1. Death

**Chapter 1: Death**

It is relatively quiet in Hadon's cantina, on the planet of Brentaal. Most of the regular visitors of Hadon's cantina are doing business at this time of the day. One particular regular isn't planning on doing any work this day. He wouldn't get any work done if he tried, for his thoughts are on the painful events of his past.

His name is Zim Marrow. At this time of the day he is usually fixing droids and other machinery. His repairing skills are pretty good, which isn't all that surprising since he's been a technician for as long as he can remember. He started repairing things for smugglers when he was still just a kid. Now he has his own repair facility here on Brentaal.

Zim is at his third drink -- or is it his fourth? -- when he sees her. "Myrin?" he asks, carefully. But it can't be Myrin, Myrin is... one with the force. Exactly one year ago she died. So, logically it can't be her, but there is nothing logical about here death either. Zim has to be sure.

He starts walking to the woman, she is just 2 tables away. He calls her again and she turned around to look at him. But it isn't her. She has the same dark hair as Myrin, but not the blue eyes. Instead they were dark brown. "Sorry", he says, "I thought you were...". That is a far as he gets. He takes another sip of his drink and starts to head back to his spot when the woman asks: "Who is Myrin?" He turns around. "Was... She's dead," he says and quickly takes another sip from his drink to wash away the grief he feels coming up through his throat.

"What happened?"

Why does she ask these questions? Why can't she leave him allone? As Zim asks himself these questions he feels anger rising.

"Why do want to know?! Can't you see it hurts enough already!" he snaps. Before he finishes the sentence, he already regrets what he is saying.

"I'm sorry, I'm just..." he pauses, trying to find the words to finish the sentence. The woman beats him to it.

"..Not in the mood to talk about it? I understand. Though sometimes, talking about it can be relieving." She has a point there. Zim hasn't talked about his past for some time, because it hurts too much. It all happened a year ago, but to him it feels like it was only yesterday. Maybe it hurts too much, because he hasn't talked about it?

He sighs. "Perhaps, you're right."

"It's a long story though"

He takes another sip from his drink and puts the empty glass on the bar.

"and I'm out of credits." he says with a grin.

"All right, then. Bartender! One Tarisian Ale and whatever this guy wants. What's your name anyway?"  
"Zim, Zim Marrow." They shake hands "Jane Dheramer".

"Tarisian Ale? I thought they were only available on Taris?"

"They were, but after the destruction of Taris, some Twi'lek named Griff Vao tried to replicate the drink. It didn't work out though; he mixed the wrong ingredients. His drink however became the new Tarisian Ale. It's nothing like the original, but it's not bad either."

For a moment they are both silent. When they get their drinks Zim starts his story.

"I don't know anything about my birth. I don't know what my home planet is, who my parents are or were. What I do know was that I was good with machines. I still am. My repair shop: the Art of reparation, is located not far to the north."

"Subtly advertising your store now, are you?" Jane asks dryly.

"Ah well, it never hurts to try." Zim says with a smirk. "Besides, I need to make a living. I can't do that without customers."

"Anyway, let's continue the story."

--------

I grew up as a slave. Officially I was an employee, but I didn't get any pay besides my 2 meals a day and shelter, which was usually no more than some walls and a roof. I got sold often to anyone who was interested in a cheap mechanic. Eventually I ended up with a man named Cortos Vrak. He was a smuggler, a small time smuggler/pirate with a lot of ambition, but lacking in the skill department. He let others do all the work for him, while he spendt the money they earned for him. He didn't care about his employees, which suited me fine. As long as I did my job reasonably well, he would leave me alone. Many of my previous owners would punish hard me if only the slightest thing went wrong.

I was sixteen when my life got turned upside down, which was actually a good thing. I was working on a cleaner droid when my boss entered the workshop, with an acquaintance of his, A man of average size. His black hair was only a few millimeters long. The hair in front of his ears got gradually shorter the lower you looked and eventually faded into a stubbly beard. I estimated his age at about 30 years. I realized I had stopped working and quickly continued. I knew what this was about, I had experienced this many times before. The guy who was with my boss, was going to see if I was worth "hiring". So I off course had to at least appear to be working hard.

"Zim! Come here, Rhylo here wants to meet you." he shouted.

"Just a minute!" I replied.

"What do you mean just a minute?! Come here now or I'll..." He stopped, no doubt because it wouldn't look good to the potential buyer. "He's just kidding, aren't you Zim? Funny kid, always joking. Hehe." he continued with a not so genuine smile.

"No, I'm not." I said, not even looking at him.

This turned his smile, if you could call it a smile, into something cold and angry. As the merchandise I was also expected to obey my boss's commands immediately. So this wouldn't look very good, but I didn't care. I couldn't come over right away because my hands were occupied with delicate droid parts. If I left this exposed on the floor it would be permanently damaged and cost my boss a lot of money. I wasn't in the mood to tell him that. In fact, I didn't really want to leave. Not because I liked it here, but because I knew from experience that there were a lot of worser places.

Vrak was about to shout some more, when I was just finished covering up the delicate components and started walking in his direction. I turned to Rhylo and shook his hand.

"Nice to meeat you, Rhylo." I said in yet another way to rebel against my boss. I was supposed to address everyone with sir, especially those who didn't belong to Vrak's pirate gang.

"Likewise Zim, your boss told me a lot of good things about you."

"Well, he never mentioned any of them to me." I turned to my boss and nodded. "Thank you Mr. Vrak" I said sarcastically. I didn't think my boss's face could look any angrier, but it did. I expected to see a look of disgust in Rhylo's eyes, the appropriate way to look at a disobeying slave. Instead he seemed to be amused by it. I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Vrak's communication device beeped and he flicked it on. I couldn't hear what was said, but the voice from the comm unit sounded slightly panicked. Vrak flicked the comm off now and turned back to Rhylo. "I'm sorry, but I have to leave you. I have some business to attend to."

Rhylo nodded in understanding and as soon as my boss was out of sight turned to me. He was smiling even more than before.

"Well Zim, I think I have a proposition to your liking. I'm in need of a mechanic for my ship. And it seems that you don't really like working here. What do you think of 500 credits a month for starters including food and a place to sleep."

Well this was a certainly a surprise. No one had ever offered me a salary. In fact no one had ever offered me anything, they just bought me from my owner, I didn't have anything to say about it.

"I don't mean any offence, but how do I know I will like it better?"

"Well, I'm fairly certain you will, but to put you at ease: you will be free to quit anytime you want. I promise you we won't stop you if you do."

I took a moment to consider it. The salary was certainly a good thing and the ability to leave when I wanted even better. But how could I trust the word of a man I didn't know, a smuggler? I decided it was worth the risk. As a slave you don't get many opportunities like this.

"OK, I accept your offer."

A moment later as if he knew we were finished here, Vrak came back with two trandoshan bodyguards.

"Rhylo! What have you done with my AAI chips?! Where are they?!" He asked furiously.

"What are you talking about? I don't know anything about any chips." Rhylo replied

"Yeah, that's what they all say. It's just a little too coincidental that this happens precisely when you are here. Guards, cuff him!"

The trandoshan on the right had only taken about half a step when three blaster shots sounded. The next moment both guards and Vrak lay on the ground, stunned.

"Thanks Kha'ri." Rhylo said and a woman appeared with a blaster in her hand. Her long blonde hair fell down behind her shoulders.

"You're welcome." her blue eyes then turned to me. "Who's your friend?"

"Ah right, meet Zim. He's going to be the new mechanic on The Chance."

Then Rhylo took one of the blasters from his belt and handed it over to me and asked:

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Yyeah, I had to repair a couple of blasters a while ago. Though, I only used them for testing purposes. I never actually tried to hit something with them." Why would he just hand me a blaster? We just met. did he trust me allready? On second thought, the two of them were experienced in combat. I wouldn't get a chance to try anything. Not that I wanted to try anything, anyway.

"That's no problem. Just shoot in the general direction of the enemy, you don't actually have to hit them. All we need is to buy ourselves some time to get away." With that he detached his comm unit from his belt.

"Marl, is everything ready? Good, we're coming your way. You can hit the remote now, we've already been discovered." Just when Rhylo flicked of his comm I heard multiple explosions in the back of Vrak's base.

"Let's go!"

We ran down the hall that led to the exit, when a dozen of Vrak's thugs came from a sidewalk in front of us. "Drop your weapons!" their leader shouted.

We were hopelessly outnumbered and there was nowhere in the hallway to hide.

"Now what?" I asked Rhylo.

"Well, we could start shooting and die, or we could do as he says and live." Kha'ri was the one who answered my question.

We put our weapons on the ground. Then dozens of blaster bolts came from the same sidewalk that had produced the thugs. In a moment only two thugs were left. As soon as they realized what had happened they dropped their weapons and put their hands up.

I expected to see dozens of Rhylo's men coming around the corner, but they stopped coming after the third had shown himself. The three of them had reduced a dozen men to two in a matter of moments.

"Ah Marl, I am sure glad to see you." Rhylo said relieved

Surprisingly it was the Duro who replied. It was even more murprising that he replied in decent basic.

"I thought you would get yourself in trouble and I didn't want to break you out of a secured prison, like last time." Duros usually aren't fighters, so it was very strange to see one covered with heavy armor and armed to the teeth. His belt was hidden behind half a dozen grenades. And with the huge repeater blaster in his hands, he definitely looked like someone you'd rather avoid. As if that wasn't enough he had a blaster on each hip and a rifle and vibroblade on his back.

The other two were human males. They weren't as heavily armed as Marl, but still looked dangerous. One of them carried a box, which no doubt contained the chips that my ex-boss was talking about earlier.

"Right." Rhylo grinned

"Anyway, Marl this is Zim. Zim they are Marl, Art and Crevar." Art was the one with the dark short hair and carried the box. Crevar was an old man, I guess he was somewhere in his early fifties. He had long, rough blonde hair that ended in a ponytail. "The more extensive introductions will have to wait. First, let's get out of here."

A few minutes later we were on our way to Rhylo's Yacht, in a speeder. The six of us were being escorted by a second speeder, occupied by 5 of Rhylo's men. They had been guarding the get-away-vehicles earlier. Surprisingly the ride had been quiet.

"Why aren't they following us?"

"Perhaps because they don't have any speeders." Crevak answered with a grin.

"They have speeders in the back of their base. I've worked on..." That's when something came back in mind. The explosions I had heard had come from the back of Vrak's base. "You blew them up."

"Yep, we did." Art confirmed and then added. "You're pretty smart, for a kid."

"Off course, Rhylo only hires the best." Kha'ri commented.

"Oh, so you're gonna be the new repairman. You got any experience with the N.U. 14 Yacht series?"

"No, I mostly repair droids and weapons. In fact, the closest thing to a space ship I have ever worked on is a Kuati K6 speeder."

"Then I guess I'll be working with you a lot for a while."

We had finally reached The Chance. I was talking with Rhylo and Art when Crevar's voice came over the Ship's intercom: "Rhylo, we have spotted 3 unidentified freighters coming straight at us." immediately the three of us ran to the bridge.

"Can we reach to lightspeed before they arrive?" Rhylo asked.

"Yes, but not without them getting our vector. And it'll take too long to calculate a secure route."

"Ok then, send the signal, start calculating the route and open a communication channel to those freighters."

"OK."

Vrak's head appeared on the holo screen and he didn't seem very happy.

"Rhylo!" He shouted angrily.

"Cortos Vrak. What can I do for you?" Rhylo asked surprisingly calm.

"You can give me back my chips and my mechanic!"

"Well, hang on let me check something out. I do have a box of A.A.I. chips, but it says here that the owner is I.E. Corporation." Rhylo said dryly "Well, what a coincidence, they belong to my client."

Then he added more seriously: "I see you have already sold five of the chips. That should easily cover the price you were going to ask for Zim."

Suddenly the ship jolted. "They have locked us in a tractor beam." Crevar announced. He was rather calm too. In fact no one on the bridge seem to make a big deal out of this whole situation.

"Don't play with me, Rhylo! You're trapped and outnumbered." Vrak's voice had turned from anger to frustration.

"Outnumbered?" This drew a laugh from the whole crew, except me. I had no idea what was going on. "Vrak, you really should have paid more attention at your basic math class. If I remember correctly three is less than six." The screen turned blank and then I noticed something behind Vrak's ships. There was a steady flow of incoming and outgoing ships and from that flow five ships had emerged. All five of them seemed to have nothing in common except that they all flew in the direction of Vrak's three freighters. Vrak appeared on the holo screen again.

"One day you'll pay for this Rhylo!"

"Yes, I'm looking forward to that day." Rhylo concluded with a mocking smile and turned off the holo.

For the next couple of years I'd be working for Rhylo as the mechanic of his personal ship. He had got it from a client, who didn't have enough credits to pay him for his services. So he paid Rhylo with a ship instead.

'The Chance' used to be yacht, untill Rhylo got his hands on it. With all its modifications, it had pretty much become a combat vessel. The ship now had heavy shields instead of the standard shields that are usually found on this type. On each side of the ship there was a dual turbolaser. Furthermore there were 2 lasers and torpedo launchers assembled on the front of the ship. Various other, less visible modifications had been made, some of them to increase the ship's speed or maneuverability.

The job was a huge change comparing with the previous work I did. Yes, I still had to repair things, but mostly I would be working on fixing the ship or improving it with some new modifications. Unlike before, I also got to talk a lot with Rhylo and his men. I spend most of the time with Art. His job on The Chance was a mystery to even Rhylo himself. He loved to fly, so he'd often relieve Maverik, the pilot, or Crevak, the co-pilot from his duty and take The Chance for a spin. He was also pretty good in combat and tactics, which made him useful on most of Rhylo's missions. The better part of his time however he'd help me with the ship's repairs and modifications. In my first months with Rhylo, he taught me the art of repairing ships. I learn fast, so it wasn't long before I could do most of the work on my own. Still it was much more fun to work on the ship together with him.

Repairing wasn't the only thing I did. I also joined on some of Rhylo's missions, usually to bypass a security system or to slice highly secured mainframes. These missions were pretty risky and often involved fighting. Thus I was thought how to use a blaster and some martial arts by Marl and Kha'ri. This turned out to be very useful on numerous occasions, not just the missions.

One of the best things about the new job was the spare time. At first I didn't what to do with it, I hardly had any of that before. But I quickly learned that my favorite way of spending the time was talking to one of the other crewmembers. At first I listened mostly, I never knew anything interesting to talk about. I didn't mind that, the others especially Art were great storytellers. I liked the stories a lot and eventually started writing them down on my datapad. This gave me something to do in my spare time. Eventually they were out of stories and kept repeating the old stories a lot and I came up with my own stories, mostly about things I had experienced myself.

I was 23 when we were on Coruscant for what was supposed to be a simple delivery mission. We were docked at the lower levels of the planet-sized city. It was daytime on this part of the planet, I could only know that by looking the chronometer. The towers of Coruscant rise so high that the the lower part is always covered in the dark, except when the sun is exactly above you. Then Rhylo came running to the ship together with Art and... no Marl? They came up the ramp exhausted.

"Maverik, lift off! Deko, calculate an evasive route to base!" He shouted. The normally calm Rhylo was now furious.

"Art, Zim, Lasers! Now!"

I had never seen him like this. I knew better then to ask what had happened or to question his order in this state, so instead I ran with Art to the turbolasers.

"They killed him. They killed Marl!" Art answered my unspoken question with a mixture of anger and grief. Even though I largely expected this, the answer shocked me. Marl had thought me how to fight and he had saved my life several times. As a bodyguard that was his job, but that didn't make his death any easier.

We were barely out of Coruscant's atmosphere when the tense voice of Deko came over the intercom. "We have fourteen incoming vessels!" Deko was the replacement of Crevar, who had retired a month ago. He was young and didn't have much experience yet, but like all of Rhylo's recruits he was very good. Being good isn't everything however, he also had to be able to handle the stress. If we were going to get out of this alive, then his performance in this situation was very likely going to seal his future in the organization. "One modified freighter, a Bilbringie Blastboat type C and twelve Zeta class starfighters!" he continued. We could handle the freighter and perhaps even the blastboat too. We were however no match for a complete squadron of starfighters. Our best chance was to run, but we could not escape to hyperspace as long as we were within a gravity well.

"How long before we are out of Coruscant's gravity well?" It was not Rhylo, but his second in command Kha'ri who had asked the question. No doubt she convinced Rhylo to deal with the loss and let her step in for now. Marl was Rhylo's best friend. We were all devastated by his loss, but Rhylo was the most affected by it. The only thing I could imagine that would have been more painful for him would be the loss of Kha'ri. They would never admit it to the rest of us, but I was pretty sure that their relationship went far beyond being colleagues.

"Not before their starfighters get to us first." Deko got gradually more tense judging by the sound of his voice.

It took a few moments before Kha'ri answered.

"Deko, divert power from all non essential systems to rear shields and cannons. Zim, Art, keep them behind us for as long as possible."

Moments later the ship shook from the laserbolts the starfighters sent out against our shields.

"Shields are holding." Deko's relieved voice came over the intercom. The starfighters must have figured that out as well, because the next thing they tried was to get past us and pound the front of our ship. Art and I sent out a rain of fire on both sides of the ship to discourage them and it worked too, at least for a while. Suddenly three of the ships made a complex evasive maneuver and came through our barrage of fire. All three of them started an attack run on the starboard side of the ship. Since I was the port side gunner I couldn't do anything about them at all, so I kept shooting at the other ships that try to get through at my side. Suddenly the ship shook again, but it wasn't the result of a laserbolt against the shields. The shake came from the surviving starfighter of the trio that got through our defensive perimeter. It's laser bolts slammed against the unprotected half of the ship.

"compartment D3,4 and 5 breached and sealed! No, damage any critical systems." Deko was now almost panicking.

"Deko, activate full shields!" Kha'ri's order was unnecesary. The ship jolted again and stars turned into lines and the lines faded into the nothingness of hyperspace. We were safe, for now.

It took almost a week of jumping in and out of hyperspace before we finally arrived at out destination: the third moon of Agamar. The moon was a lifeless rock, on which Rhylo had built his homebase. The base was built in a cave, one of the remains of the growth that had been on this moon thousands of years ago.

I hadn't spoke to Rhylo since Coruscant and decided it was time to change that. As I approached Rhylo's quarter I heard him talking to Kha'ri.

"It has to be you in 'The Blade'." The Kha'ri Blade was a ship Rhylo had built for his second in command a year ago.

"There is no other way. They know The Chance and I'm needed here. We can't keep hiding from them, so we need to find evidence that we were set up and clear our name." After this it was silent so I decided to go in. Inside I saw them kissing each other. I quickly turned around in the hope they hadn't spotted me yet, but it was too late.

"Zim! don't you ever knock?!" Rhylo shouted.

"No... I mean... I'm sorry, sir" I replied embarrassed.

"Don't call me 'sir', you know I hate it when you do that." I knew that. It was a reaction I had learned in the days when I was still a slave. Even after seven years I still said it automatically when I was uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I thought you two were finished."

"Don't worry about it, Zim." Kha'ri said and Rhylo added: "Just keep this quiet, I don't want anyone to think I'm putting Kha'ri before the rest." With that Kha'ri glanced with a partly angry partly surprised look at Rhylo. "You don't put me before the others?" she asked him, not quite serious.

"Hey, I didn't say that. I just don't want them to think I do, I didn't say I don't do it." Rhylo replied.

He continued as Kha'ri left Rhylo's quarter. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about, Zim?"

"Well... I just wanted to know what happened back on Coruscant to Marl." It was really hard to say his name. "I know he was your best friend, but I liked him as well. I want to know who killed him!" At that moment I wanted nothing more than revenge.

Rhylo waited a moment and then answered . "I killed him." I looked at him with disbelief. "If I had just let someone check out the case with the spice thoroughly... The case contained a bomb. I handed it over to the client and a few moments later it exploded and killed the client. The surviving guards started shooting at me. And Marl... he jumped in front of me and took the bolts." He swallowed "So that's why I didn't tell you or anyone else, only Kha'ri knows. It's my fault that Marl is dead." It took me a while to absorb what he had said.

"You're not the one who killed him." I finally said. As I said it I figured Kha'ri must have told him this hundreds of times, apparently without success, so my effort was probably in vain. I started to walk to the door. Then I stopped as I remembered something I had wanted to say earlier. "This thing between you and Kha'ri, I don't think anyone will mind. Besides, everyone suspects it. I know I wasn't surprised when I saw you two kissing." He didn't say anything so I just went back to my own quarter.

"Everyone to The Chance!"

Two days had passed since the arrival at the homebase. I had just been woken up by the noisy alarm system.

"We have incoming contacts, most likely hostiles!"

As I entered the ship I started for the bridge where I usually sat, but then remembered that we didn't yet have a replacement for Marl, so I changed direction to go to the portside turret instead.

Rhylo's voice came over the intercom.

"Art, Zim, we have confirmed that the ships are the same from Coruscant. Fire at will! Deko, prepare for a hyperspace jump!"

"To where?" Deko asked.

"Anywhere except here."

The enemy ships finally came in range and I was about to start firing on them when went into hyperspace. About fifteen minutes later white line appeared and faded back into stars. On my right, in front of the ship, I saw a huge green/blue planet. I were much too close to it

Only seconds later red dots appeared on the my target screen.

"They must have followed our vector!" Deko said.

"Deko, is there a landing place on the planet?"

"Yes, there seems to be a small town with a landing bay on this side of the planet."

"Land there. Zim, Art, you must hold them off as long as possible."

We both immedately started shooting. Both of us were able to vaporize one fighter before they started their first attack run. The squadron was now reduced to 8 fighters. They launched a volley of laserbolts, most of which slammed into our shields.

"Shields down to 34 percent!"

I was able to get another one of the fighters and Art even destroyed two of them. But it was not enough. The five remaining ships sent out another volley, most of them were absorbed by the shield, but then the shields collapsed and the remaining bolts ate through the hull on the front of the ship. The ship shook so hard that I nearly fell out of my chair.

I expected Deko to yell out another status report, but the intercom remained silent.

"Rhylo? Deko? Anyone?" came Art's voice.

"I'm here." I said.

"Zim, thank the Force you're allright! Can you check out what happened to the others? I'll help our rescuers with the remaining enemy ships." Rescuers? I looked out of the viewport and saw three distinctly different fighters attacking our enemies. They flew in perfect unison, never had I seen anything like that in my whole life! I was so absorbed by it that I nearly forgot what I was going to do.

"Copy that, Art"

I went to the the bridge, but I couldn't enter it. The emergency hatch had sealed it from the rest of the ship. A red light next to the door indicated the chamber was exposed to vacuum. There was no doubt about it.

"Art...they are dead." For a long moment it was silent.

Then I remembered something. The bridge was sealed and the flight controls were at the bridge.

"Art, we have a problem. We're heading for that planet and I can't get to the controls!"

"Can't we route the controls to one of the turrets?"

"Yes, but it'll take at least 15 minutes." I looked outside through another viewport and saw the huge planet growing steadily larger. "We don't have 15 minutes!" Again silence filled the moment.

"Zim, get to the cargo bay at the back! The further we are away from the front of the ship, the higher our chance of survival." Though even in the cargo bay at the far back of the ship, our chances of survival were pretty much negligible.

In the cargo bay we were both silent. The loss of our friends had made us speechless. Eventually art decided to speak anyway.

"Zim... I enjoyed working with you."

"Me too, Art... Me too."

We were much more than simply colleagues, but we both new that anyway. The noise of the impact filled my ears and then everything went black.

--------

Zim swallows as he thinks about the crash. It happened about ten years ago, but it still is a painful memory. Fortunately, not nearly as painful as the death of Myrin. He finishes his drink and looks around. The cantina has become crowded since he started the story, and some of the newcomers are looking at him. They are no doubt listening to his story. Zim never liked crowds. It was the reason he was on the relatively sparsely populated Aredia continent. The thought of people intruding on a private conversation makes him angry, angrier than is reasonable. He wants to say something about it, shout at them, make them regret what they had done.

He stands up and reaches for his blaster, but his hand finds nothing there. He looks at his right hip and remembers that he didn't bring it with him. Then he realizes with a shock what he had nearly done. This isn't like him, is it? If he had his blaster with him, would he have pulled the trigger? The grief and anger he had felt coursing through him is now replaced with doubt and fear. He looked at Jane, his face had turned white as if he has seen a ghost.

"I have to go. I have to get out of here" He says, more to himself than to her. Then starts walking to the exit, faster after every step.

"Zim, wait! Where are you going?" Jane asks. But he doesn't seem to hear her.

In the back of Hadon's cantina, a sinister figure watches the events. Somehow he has managed to hide in a shadow, eventhough it is an extraordinarily sunny day. He grins as he feels, rather than sees, Zim leaving the cantina. The doubt and fear that is radiating from his victim's presense feels good to him. This is however only a small taste of what he is going to do with the man he hates the most. Ah yes, the upcoming days, weeks, maybe even months, are going to be great! Though, not so great for Zim.


	2. Mourning

**Chapter 2: Mourning**

He is confused and afraid. Afraid of himself. That's why he runs away from the others, from her.

A moment ago they were just sitting in Hadon's cantina, talking. He was explaining his past to her. But at the thought of painful memories, grief and anger took over control of his body. He had nearly killed some of the customers in the cantina, who were listening to conversation not meant for their ears. Thank the force he didn't have his blaster with him.

"Wait!" a voice shouts. Her voice.

She has followed him out of the cantina. Why is she following him? Didn't she see what happened back there or at least what could have happened? Obviously not. She probably wants an explanation. But how can he tell her? Perhaps he should just ignore her. Sooner or later she will give up the chase. Though, she will probably ask about it the next time she sees him. No! He has to convince her to stay away from him. Everytime he get close to someone, something bad tends to happen and those who he cares about get killed. It happened with Rhylo and his men. It happened with Myrin. And now it's happening again, though this time he himself seems to be the threath.

Zim Marrow stops. He waits untill the woman, Jane Dheramer, stands next to him.

"Why are you following me?" he asks, without even looking at her.

"You're the one who left so suddenly, you tell me." she replies. He doesn't want to answer that question. He isn't even sure he knows the answer, so he remains silent.

"So, why did you leave?" she asks patiently. Zim dares to glance in her direction. Her dark eyes remind him of the woman he once loved. Myrin Xanos. He opens his mouth to answer, but a lump in his throat prevents any sound from escaping. Myrin died about a year ago, but it still hurts every time he thinks about her. He swallows the grief and turns his gaze away.

"You don't want to know."

"I asked, didn't I?"

He sighs.

"In that case, I don't want you to know."

This isn't going to work. She isn't going to leave him alone.

"I just want to help."

"I don't want your help!" Zim suddenly shouts. "You wouldn't understand nobody would!"

"What ab..." Zim cut her of.

"If you really want to help, then stay away! It'll be much better for your health!"

He sees the shock in her face. Those last words seem to have the effect he wants, so he turns and leaves. He knows it's for the best, but he still feels guilty about having to treat her this way. She doesn't deserve it.

Three days later

"Beetwelve, could you hand me the power regulator?"

The droid beeps affirmatively and hands the cube shaped component of a protocol droid.

"That should do it." Zim says to no one in particular as he turns the droid on.

"I am SP 76a, how can I be of service?" The droid asks dutifully.

"Oh dear. My limbs are frozen," it adds, in a tone that many people would use to recite a mathematical equation.

"Yeah, yeah..." Zim Marrow sighs "I haven't gotten that far yet." Then he turns the droid back off.

Normally he would have the droid finished by now. But today he's tired. He hasn't been able to sleep much since the incident in Hadon's cantina. The nightmares keep him awake. He can't remember what the nightmares are about, which makes it all the more frustrating.

The T3-B12 utility droid next to him warbles something. Most people wouldn't understand the language of Beetwelve, but Zim, having spent most of his life fixing droids, has no trouble translating it.

"Are you sure? I didn't hear anyone come in." He returns as he walks through the door into the room where he sells droids, devices and machine parts. There he sees a man, maybe a woman, in black robes examaning the cooking units.  
"Can I help you?" Zim asks.

After a long moment, the dark figure turns around. His face is hidden in the shadow of the hood of the black robes.

"Yes, you certainly can." the figure returns in a raspy and sinister voice. "But not now. We will meet again and I'm looking forward to it." The voice sounds familiar to Zim, but he can't place it.  
"Do I know you?" he asks, but the figure has already turned around and walks away.

"What was that all about?" he asks himself. Then he walks back to the protocol droid to continue repairs on its limbs.

Two arms and a half leg later, Beetwelve announces the arrival of another customer.

"I'll be there in a few minutes!" Zim shouts in the hope that the customer hears him. He quickly finishes the attaching of the lower leg to SP 76a, lays down his tools and walks back to the shop. There he sees a woman examing the dozens of droids.  
"Welcome to 'the Art of reparations', what can I..." He stops in mid-sentence as the woman turns around. It's Jane Dheramer, the woman from the cantina.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asks with bitterness in his voice.

"Is that anyway to treat a potential customer?" Jane counters defiantly. "I'm here to have my comm unit fixed."  
"Right, and the Sith came to Brentaal to visit the Tower of Wealth." The Tower of Wealth used to be the biggest building on the planet and attracted hundreds of millions of tourists each year. Untill the Sith flattened it along with thousands of other buildings near it, about a year ago. The Republic fleet was able to repell the attack of the Sith, but not without cost.

Jane doesn't reply, instead she just hands over the comm unit and explains what was wrong with it. Zim writes everything down on a datapad, eventhough he'd probably remember it fine without one. But it's a good excuse to not have to look at her.  
"It's a common problem with this type, I should have it fixed by tomorrow." Zim concludes. Fixing it would be easy. In fact, even a novice mechanic would be able to handle this.

He turns his gaze back to her.

"Why did you come here?"

"You made it clear that you didn't want my help and that's fine with me. However, you still owe me at least the rest of your story. I didn't buy you that whisky only to hear the half of it."

Zim sighs. This woman is getting on his nerves.

"I'll tell it, if you will leave me alone afterwards."  
"Deal. There is just one other thing..."

From the mountain south of the Lendell you can see the whole city. But then again, Lendell isn't a very large city. Still, with about one hundred-thousand citizens it's the largest city on Aredia. Most of the buildings in the city are about two stories high and therefore not much more then a dot from this mountaintop. In the east of Lendell however, you can see eight huge transparent food processors, which produce enough food to feed the whole city. Other needs are imported. As a result, vast forests and grasslands occupy most of the Aredia continent.

The other seven continents of Brentaal are largely covered with starports, industrial facilities, trade markets and other buildings, which are so large they almost rival those on Coruscant. This is not surprising since Brentaal is located in the intersection of the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way, two of the most used hyperspace routes in the galaxy.

The Aredians respect nature, unlike most of the habitants of the other continents. Laws restrict the cutting of trees, hunting animals and other actions that damage nature. Though here they are not as strict as for example on Ithor, where no one is allowed to even set foot on the planet with only a few exceptions. No, here on Aredia, people are encouraged to go into the forests to experience the continent's beauty. The general philosophy is that everyone is part of nature and therefore has the responsibility to keep it balanced. This responsibility is taken very seriously: Ecologists observe the forests, grasslands and it's habitants. Any mutations they come across are carefully analyzed to see whether the change will do damage or not. If the mutation turns out to be damaging, measures are taken immediately. The hunts are a good example of such measures. When a certain animal type is reproducing too fast, hunts are organized to slow it down.

Not far from the top of mount Lendell, Zim and Jane are watching one of these hunting parties return from the forests with its catch.

"Nice view!" Zim says.

"I used to come here a lot when I was still a child. " Jane explains as she looks down at the city. "I still come here sometimes. I can sit here for hours just enjoying the view and listening to the animals from the forest and forget about everything else."

Jane had insisted to come here. At first Zim tried to talk her out of it and just tell the story at the repair shop. It wasn't long before he realized his efforts to change her mind were useless. Though, right now he's glad about that.

"I never realized Aredia is so beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Dantooine."

Jane turns around to look at him.

"You've been on Dantooine?" she asks.

"Well, I'll have to continue the story to explain that."

"Go ahead then."

--------

As I was saying, I blacked out at the crash. This was hardly surprising, I mean, anyone will have a hard time staying conscious when he slams into a planet with a few thousand miles an hour.

The next thing I remember after the crash I woke up in a small chamber. My head felt like someone was pounding it against a duracreet wall at my every heartbeat. I was trying to get up, but a hand on my shoulder pushed me back down onto the bed. The hand hadn't been necessary; my body screamed in pain whenever I tried to move.

"You should just lie down for now." a voice said.

It took a while for me to realize that the hand and the voice probably belonged to someone in the room. I hadn't looked around yet so I decided to do that now. I was surprised that moving my head around didn't hurt, well at least not nearly as much as anything else I did. It wasn't long before I finished examining the room. Besides the bed all I could see in the room was a durasteel case in the form of a box. And then on my left I saw a woman. She had amazing dark eyes, which accentuated the smile formed by her lips. Long dark hair hung down from her head in a vertical wave-pattern until it disappeared behind her shoulders. Her shoulders were covered by brown robes, which also covered the rest of her body. I couldn't think of anything to say to her, so instead I returned a smile for as far as I could manage.

She then removed her right hand from my shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. I realized I wasn't completely sure myself so I tested some of my bodyparts with my hands. After wincing a few times from the pain I confirmed what I had already suspected.

"I feel like I've been swallowed and spit out by a rancor."

She laughed at that. Then her expression turned back to concern.

"At least your still alive, I didn't think anyone could survive a crash like that."

As she said it I started to remember what had happened: the death of Marl, the chase on Coruscant and Agamar, then the death of Rhylo, Maverik and Deko. And the last moments with Art until the crash.

"Art! Where is he?!" I demanded

She shook her head sadly.

"You are the only one who survived."

I looked away from her to the ceiling to absorb the significance of this news. The daunting realization came over me that everyone I had ever cared about was dead, wiped away from existence in a single fight and I didn't even know why. I continued to stare at the ceiling as my mind swirled in mixed emotion. I was angry at those responsible for their deaths as well as the mysterious rescue fighters for being too late. I also was uncertain of what to do now without them, but most of all I was devastated by the loss of my friends. After what felt like an hour, but probably was only a few minutes, I turned my gaze back to the woman only to find her gone. I needed some time alone anyway. She had left a platter with food on the case next to the bed. At that moment I realized I felt like I hadn't eaten in weeks, and come to think of it maybe I hadn't. I have no idea how long I was unconscious.

Most of the food was fresh fruit, most likely from the planet I was currently on, whatever planet that was. I didn't recognize anything of the fruit, but it could have been bantha fodder for all I cared and I still would have eaten it.

The next morning I woke up to hear a familiar sound. A moment later a droid entered the room, a T3 utility droid. It was one of the new B models, they were the first to go on 4 wheels instead of the regular 3 wheels. It didn't make sense for this droid to be here. Sure a utility droid be used for a wide variety of things ranging from janitor work to repairs. A T3 droid however is pretty expensive and therefore mostly used for complex repairs or even slicing, but there were no complex machines in the room. In fact the only things that could have been broken were the lights or the heating, as there was no other machinery there, and I hadn't noticed anything wrong with those.

My suspicions were soon confirmed as the droid the rode on, bumped into the wall and still tried move further forward. I threw the blankets of me, sat up and walked towards the droid to turn it off. As I neared the droid I noticed that I didn't feel any of the pain I had felt the other day. My headache was gone, my limbs didn't object to every move I made, I was healed. Well almost. I felt a jolt of pain in my back as I bucked to reach the back panel of, according to the number on the panel, T3 B12. I sat down trying to move into a position that didn't make my back feel like it was splitting in two. Then I turned off the droid and took a better look at it. Before I could see what the problem was with Beetwelve, I heard footsteps behind me.

I stood up and turned around to find the woman from the previous day standing in the doorway. She almost managed to hide her surprise in time and then quickly turned around. I was confused by the way she reacted. Was she surprised that I was up and walking already? But then, why turn around?

"You might want to put on some clothes." she said with a hint of amusement.

I looked down and saw that I was completely naked and I hadn't even realized it.

"erhm... yes, uh... you don't happen to have any... I mean... do you know where I can find my clothes?"

My face must have been turning as red as an Agamarian Mountain Apple.

"Your clothes were destroyed in the crash, you will find some robes in the case behind the bed. You can wear that until you get yourself something else."

I quickly dressed and then told the woman she could come in.

"I came here to see how you were doing today." she explained.

"Much better. It only hurts when I make certain movements."

"Yes, you are healing fast, but how are you feeling?"

It took me a moment to figure out that she meant how I felt about the death of my friends.

"Let's just not talk about that." I returned.

She nodded.

"I believe we haven't introduced each other yet. I'm Myrin Xanos." She said and made a respectful bow.

"Zim Marrow." I said and returned the bow. Bad move! As I did so, pain shot into my back again. I quickly straightened and moved my right hand to my back in a reflex. Myrin put her right hand on my back as well and gripped my left arm with the other to steady and guide me to the bed, so I could sit on it.

"Maybe you should lie down for a while."

"No, I'm all right." I let out a moan from the pain, contradicting my own words. "Some actions are just off limits. I guess bowing is one of those actions." I sighed in relieve as the pain went away. It was kind of awkward for me to be held by a woman. I hadn't had much contact with women in the past. Except Kha'ri, but I knew her well, she was a friend. Myrin was a total stranger to me, hence I had just found out what her name was. As if sensing my awkwardness about it, she let go of me.

It was silent for a few moments. I took another look around the room. There wasn't much to see except for the droid still standing frozen against the wall.

"You should get Beetwelve here fixed."

"Naturally, but the mechanic of the academy went to Coruscant a few weeks ago, we haven't been able to find someone to replace him."

I suddenly realized that with Rhylo and the others gone I didn't have a job anymore. I couldn't just do nothing all day.

"I'll fix him."

"You're a mechanic?"

I nodded.

"Well, before you go fixing things you should let your back heal." I wanted to object to this, but she was right. It would be pretty tough to fix a droid without ducking. Though I wasn't planning on spending days just laying on the bed again.

"What kind of academy is this anyway, what do you study here?"

"This is a Jedi Academy, we study the ways of the Force." She said it as if it was just like any other academy. I looked at her with a mixture of aw and disbelief. I had heard lots of things about Jedi. There are only a few thousand Jedi in this galaxy. They are classified as 'Guardians of the Republic' with no specific details on what they do. I was told they gained supernatural powers by worshipping the force. Some say they don't really have those powers, but that they are just a bunch of religious geeks. Others say they use their mindtrick powers to control the Republic government. Some claim the Jedi are the light side of the force and that their soul purpose is to battle evil. I didn't know what to think of the Jedi, I decided to keep an open mind. Besides I was on a Jedi academy, so I'd probably find out soon enough.

"So, I take it you are a Jedi?"

"Yes, a Jedi knight."

"What's does that mean?"

"A Jedi starts as an apprentice, this is the stage where the Jedi is trained. When his or her training is complete the Jedi becomes a Jedi knight. The wisest of the Jedi knights become masters, they train the new Jedi." she explained. "Anyway, I can show you around as I take Beetwelve here back to the repair facility. If you feel you're up to it."

"Sure. Though, if you want to take Beetwelve with you, I'll have to override the Auto-brakes. This could take a while."

"That's not necessary. The facility is not far from here, so I'll just lift the droid." she said casually.

I looked at her confused. Even a Wookie would have trouble lifting this kind of droid, so I wondered how she was going to do that. Before I could ask her she turned her gaze to the droid and made a gesture with her hands. I couldn't believe my eyes as I saw the droid rising in the air! Yes, I had heard the stories about Jedi having supernatural powers and I had decided to keep an open mind. However, never had it crossed my mind that they could actually have those special powers. I always thought that maybe people were exaggerating or that the Jedi just used tricks like other so-called magicians. But I saw it with my own eyes.

"H..how do you do that?" I stammered.

"I use the force." she returned as if it was something one would do everyday. I could see in the expression on her face that it was the best explanation I'd get, so I decided to let the subject rest. Though, in my whole life I had never believed in the supernatural. It was going to take more than one trick to make me believe in this force.

As she showed me around, she told me about the history of this academy. It turns out that I was on Dantooine. The Jedi academy of Dantooine had been established by a Jedi master named Vodo Siosk Baas. Many of the Jedi he trained later became Jedi masters. He had also trained the infamous Exar Kun, who turned to the darkside and claimed the title of Sith Lord. When master Siosk Baas found out, he tried to turn his apprentice back to light. Exar Kun killed him and so the Exar Kun war began. It took the combined strength of thousands of Jedi to destroy him.

On our short trip to the repair facility I saw many Jedi meditating. One of the Jedi, he couldn't be more than 12 years old, was surrounded with rocks just floating in the air. In one of the rooms, Myrin told me it was a training room, I saw another young Jedi facing an alien of a species I had never seen before. The alien was a short gray, greenish creature with a relatively large head and pointy ears that stuck out to the sides.

"That's master Vandar" Myrin said as she saw me looking at at the strange creature.

The two Jedi in the training room bowed to eachother and then I saw two strokes of light growing from their hands at the sound of a snap-his. Lightsabres! The two of them circled around each other for a few seconds. The only sound I could hear was the humming of the two lightsabres. Then the boy with a green lightsabre in his hands shot forward and swung his weapon down on master Vandar. I thought the Jedi master was going to be cut in two, but just milliseconds before the green glow reached his skin, his blue lightsabre blocked it with a loud clatter. The boy slashed down, left and right in an attempt to get through the defenses of his opponent. Each slash was met with a parry from the Jedi master. Next, the boy jumped up over the other Jedi with a summersault to attack him in the back. The Jedi master had however already turned around and easily blocked his attack. The boy continued to attack with increasingly impressive moves, each one blocked by master Vandar, who's movements were far less impressive but more efficient. The Jedi master only moved from his position when it was absolutely necessary and he only parried to defend himself, never once attacking the boy. I was amazed by the speed with which the two Jedi fought. Sometimes I could only see a blue-green blur from the two lightsabres, intertwined with white from the robes of the boy and dark blue from the robes of master Vandar.

I could no longer deny the evidence I saw before me, indicating that Jedi did have powers.

"Are you coming, or are you going to watch that all day?" I heard Myrin ask.

"Right, sorry." I said as I turned around and started after her. I couldn't help look back a few times to catch some more glimpses of the fight. When I almost walked into wall because of this, I stopped looking back and concentrated on the path ahead. Occasionally I saw a Jedi passing by. All Jedi wore these distinctive Jedi robes, some had a different color, but the otherwise they were the same. It occurred to me that I was wearing the same thing, which made me feel somewhat uncomfortable since I wasn't a Jedi.

The whole trip to the facility took almost 20 minutes, mostly because of our little pause training room. In the facility I saw a red-skinned male Twi'lek working on a datapad. He laid down his tools and looked in our direction.

"Myrin! It's good to see you again." He said in basic. He walked to Myrin and they embraced each other.

"Good to see you too Zhar." she said after they let go of one another.

"I want you to meet Zim Marrow." she said, gesturing at me. "Zim, this is Zhar Lestin."

"Nice to meet you." I said as I shook his hand. I was grateful I didn't have to bow again, my back wouldn't have survived that.

"You must be the one who survived the crash." Zhar said. "The force is with you."

"I don't think so" I countered as I thought of Art, Rhylo and the others who hadn't survived. Maybe it would have been better if I had just died there with them.

It was silent for a while.

"I thought you said the mechanic left?" I asked to break the silence, as I looked at Myrin.

It was Zhar who answered.

"The mechanic has left, but there are still many things in need of fixing." he explained. "I try to repair them, but I have little experience."

"The only devices he can fix are the ones that aren't broken." Myrin commented dryly

"I can help out for a while." I said, eager to actually do something.

"Not in your current state." Myrin countered.

"Perhaps you can tell me how to repair this datapad." Zhar said.

"Sure, but it makes more sense to start working on Beetwelve." I returned. The droid stood in a corner flanked by 2 protocol droids and a cleaner droid. I didn't remember Myrin putting the droid there. "A T3 droid can be very useful for the repairs on the rest of the devices."

In the next four days I spend much of my time helping out Zhar with repairs on Beetwelve. It turns out Zhar was one of the 'rescuers', who had failed to save Art and the others. I didn't know whether to punch him for that or to thank him for saving my life. I decided to do neither and just pretend as if nothing was wrong.

Zhar also told me that Myrin was the one who got me out of wreckage. I wanted to thank her for that, but I hadn't seen her yet. The previous days she had come by the facility occasionally to see how I was doing, but not today

Zhar finished the last repairs on the droid and activated it. A few moments later the droid warbled enthusiastically. Zhar looked at Beetwelve as if it had just spoken in Schriiwook. He obviously didn't understand its language.

"He is thanking you." I explained to Zhar.

"He should be thanking you, Zim. I would not have been able to fix him without your help." he said. "Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

"I don't want anything in return. If it wasn't for the Jedi, I would be dead right now. I owe the Jedi my life. Helping you to fix this droid is nothing compared to that."

He shook his head.

"You are not endebted to us. We Jedi are obligated to preserve all life as part of our commitment to the force. "

My thoughts wandered back to the great time I had with Art, Rhylo and the others. 'The Jedi didn't do a very good job of preserving their lives' I thought.

"I am sorry we could not save your friends, Zim. Death is sometimes unavoidable. Such is the way of the force." He said as if he had read my mind.

"I don't believe in this Force junk! If it helps you convince that you were not to blame for their deaths that's fine! But I'm no Jedi, the force has nothing to do with me and I don't want to have anything to do with the force!" I returned and walked away.

I was barely out of the facility before I regretted my words. It wasn't Zhar's fault that he was too late to save my friends. I decided I needed some time alone before I'd take out my anger on anyone else, so I walked outside the Jedi enclave for the first time. I was stunned by the view, it was simply amazing. The landscape was covered with grass, flowers and plants, except for a few bare rocks. A few trees provided shadows for the animals and insects. The many small hills made it look as if the whole landscape was a green ocean with big waves, frozen in time. I'd never seen so much of nature's beauty on any of the other planets I had been. But then, most planets I visited with Rhylo and his crew were densily populated and barely had any nature at all.

When I looked up to the sky I saw one of the most magnificent creatures I'd ever seen. It's wings were huge and triangular in shape. On top the wing were gray, from below they were white, which often made it hard to see the creature against the white clouds wandering in the blue sky. Despite his size he flew gracefully through the air with ease, as if there was hardly any gravitational force on this planet.

I looked back down and froze. Right in front of me I saw the wreckage of the ship I had served on for more than seven years. It didn't even remotely look like it with half of the ship laying shattered around the wreckage, but I instinctively knew this was _The Chance_. Or at least what remained of it. I had heard I could find it a few miles to the north of the academy, but I never even wanted to think about checking it out. I turned around and wanted to run away. No such luck. About a hundred feet before me I saw a vicious creature growling threateningly at me. In a flash I vaguely remembered a warning from Myrin. She had told me to should stay close to the enclave to avoid contact with Kath-hounds. They didn't like it when someone entered their territory. I immediately regretted that I hadn't followed up on her advice.

As the creature slowly moved towards me I backed away, matching my speed to the creature's. But soon my back bumped against the wreckage. I had run out of space. The creature however continued towards me. His pace quickened the closer he came. My hart was pounding against my chest. I sat down. I had to calm myself down and think. What would Art have done in a situation like this? Then I noticed a familiar object through the pile of rubble in front of me. It was one of the blasters I had custom made. I grabbed it and pointed it towards the Kath-hound. Several components fell to the ground, including the barrel. Some of the components just hung loose, only attached to the blaster by a few wires. The weapon was useless.

My heart sank. This was it. There was no way I could get away. The creature was only twenty feet away and running towards me. In a few seconds it would tear me apart, feed on my flesh and chew on my bones. I closed my eyes and protected my face with my hands, as if that would do any good. I prepared myself to die, but I was not afraid. In fact I was kind of relieved. In the past few days I had often wished I had died in the crash and this was like getting a second chance.

I awaited my death, but it didn't come. I opened my eyes to see why I wasn't dead yet and I saw the Kath-hound just a few feet away. The creature looked confused, scared even. After a moment of indecision the creature just ran away. I felt relieved and disappointed at the same time.

"Are you all right?" a familiar voice came.

I turned my gaze in the direction of the voice and saw Myrin running to me.

"This was your doing?" I asked as she sat down next to me.

She just nodded. I turned my gaze back to the blaster in my hand, or what was left of it.

"I know I should be grateful to you for saving my life, but I can't help wishing you hadn't."

"I know what it's like to lose someone you care about." she said and put a hand on my shoulder as a gesture of sympathy.

I brushed it off

"No! You can't possibly know what I'm going through!" I countered. "Losing someone you care about is one thing. Losing everything you care about is something else all together."

"In these past four days I felt like I was in some kind of nightmare. I figured I could wake up at any moment and find everybody still alive. I finally realized that's not going to happen."

Tears ran down my cheeks.

"How could you know what that feels like?" I asked and looked at her. Through the moist in my eyes I could see the sad expression on her face. Maybe I was wrong and she did know.

"You're right. I couldn't know." she said. "Perhaps you should tell me about it, so I can understand."

This request took me by surprise. I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell her. I always have been distrustful of people, but well, what would you expect of someone who grew up as a slave. I didn't share my private life to anyone I didn't know very well. But there was something about Myrin, I don't know how to explain this. I felt... at peace when she was around. But then I figured I had already lost everything. I couldn't possibly feel any worse than I already did. So I told her about my best friend Art, about Rhylo, who had been like a father to me, and the others. I told her about how I became Rhylo's mechanic and finally about the events that led to the crash.

It took Myrin a moment to absorb the whole story.

"Wow. I'm sorry Zim. I really am. If there is anything I can do..."

"You have already helped me by listening to this. I feel a lot better now."

"I'm glad I could help." Myrin said.

We both stood up and started to head back to Jedi enclave.

"I originally came here to say goodbye. I'm going on a mission for the Jedi council. It maybe months before I get back."

"Then I guess this is the last time we see each other." I said.

"Actually, I don't think this is our last meeting."

"You don't? Why?"

"I don't know. It's just a feeling I have."

"I don't understand."

"Let's just say it's a Jedi thing."

When we finally arrived at the enclave, we said goodbye and parted. She went off to the docking bay and I walked back to the repair facility. I was still wondering what Myrin had meant with her Jedi hunch, for the lack of a better word. How could we possibly meet again unless I stayed here on Dantooine? I hadn't seen any non-Jedi at the academy unless they were visitors, so I figured the Jedi would never let me stay here. Unless...

I entered the facility. Zhar Lestin was repairing the same datapad that he was working on 4 days ago. He laid down his tools and turned around to see me.

"Zhar, I'm sorry about the way I acted earlier. It wasn't your fault." I apologized.

"No, it was not my fault, nor was it yours for that matter. However, you were right about one thing. To have blind fate in the force, or any other belief, is dangerous. It can lead to indifference which in turn might lead to inaction or unconsidered actions." I was surprised that something I had said apparently made sense to a Jedi knight. "So, what can I help you with, Zim?"

"Well, I need your help." I said.

"I'd like to become a Jedi."


End file.
